A Day of Heights

Today has been a big day despite the fact that we tried to make it a little easier on ourselves. After a brekky of eggs and coffee at Prufrocks, we tubed into the city to see St Paul's Cathedral.

I saw this the Cathedral myself last year and actually did a 45 minute tour, but I wanted to experience the majesty and interest of this building with Chris, so was more than happy to look through again.

I think St Paul's is Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece. He was in his seventies when the dome, the final structure was beiing built. A little too old to walking up the scaffolds and steps to get up there, he would have himself hailed up there in a basket.

We had a very good look around the cathedral floor, taking in the various sights like the modern 3D cross, the font, and sitting looking up at the ceiling and dome. St Paul's is the only domed cathedral in all of Britain. It is majestic but not gaudy. Its blue and gold colour pallette for the ceilings is something Ihave not seen before.

After, we climbed the spiral staircase up to the main gallery at the base of the dome. This is inside the cathedral and is known as the Whispering Gallery due to its incredible acoustic properties where you can hear a whisper on the other side of the gallery. It is very high up, and once again and not unexpectedly, I became acrophobic up there. I needed time for my parasympathietic nervous system to kick in and settle me down, so I just sat quietly and watched Chris make his way around the circle and back to me. At that point, I felt calm enough to try myself, so I gingerly walked around the circumference myself. I was pleased with the effort.

Then, up to the dome on the outside of the building. I had been up here last year and knew what to expect. I did quite well and my nervous system calmed me down after only a few minutes. There are unparalleled views of London from the dome of St Paul's and it really is worth the climb of 528 steps up there.

After the retracing of all the steps back down again, we took a dive down into the crypt under the cathedral floor where lots of famous people are buried, including Wellington, Nelson, Florence Nightingale, John Donne and Christopher Wren. A lovely surprise for me was when Chris found the floor plaque over the grave of Sir Arthur Sullivan of Savoy Operas fame.

A coffee ensued and a walk to the Guildhall, London's original seat of power for the city. It is still used today for that purpose. It is a medieval grand hall started in 1411 and finished 29 years later. In recent decades, the city has built a dedicated Art Gallery to house its over 4000 item collection. This runs perpendicular to the old hall. It is a wonderul collection, but is also the custodian of London's Roman amphitheatre which hosted brutal gladiatorial games. Its remains are carefully preserved underneath the gallery.

A brazen question by myself to the authorities to see if they would let us into see the Guildhall itself turned up a yes, and we made our way through a modern wing adjacent and into the Hall. There were Court proceedings about to start in there, but they let us go in regardless. It is vast and cavernous, has its own fascinating history and is well worth a visit.

This evening we had tickets to the theatre. At the Barbican Centre we saw a musical called A Strange Loop, an American black gay production that looked at identity, culture and religion. It was powerful, funny and wonderfully performed by a small ensemble cast of actors/singers. A two hour performance without intermission.

We were pereched way up high in the front row, so I became acropobic again. However, after everybody who needed to get past us moving to their seats had passed, I settled right down to enjoy the show.

We bought some touristy bits n pieces today, and did a fair bit of walking, although we did go and sit with the lunch crowd in a park in the middle of a circus which was lovely.

Another great day. What a wondeful time we are having.Read more